In 1966 15 year old school chums Chris Bell and Alex Chilton went to see the Beatles when they visited Memphis on a whistle stop tour of the states. After playing in other bands for a while, they teamed up in 1972 to form a song writing partnership that they credited as Bell/Chilton on their album - no prizes for guessing where they got that idea from!
The result is an engaging debut, with some glam tinged rock numbers and quieter moments with some sweet vocal harmonies taking obvious cues from the Beatles and the Byrds, but good enough to stand on their own. Unfortunately the album didn’t do particularly well, leading to tensions in the band with Bell quitting after their follow up. He died not long after at the tragically young age of 27 in a car accident.
So, it’s an obscure relic of an LP, and mostly pretty good, but it’s tempting to imagine how things might have turned out if they’d broken through at the time and had the success they deserved.
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